United Trainees` Strike Decision Leaves Futures Up In The Air

If the United Airlines 500 could somehow be freed from a thorny bind, the pilots strike, which passed its 17th day Sunday against the nation`s largest air carrier, might be ended.

Rick Shay is a member of the United 500. ``This is all very unusual for me, since I basically consider myself a pro-management person,`` said Shay, a former Navy pilot who dearly hoped to be flying now for United.

But the Minneapolis resident is grounded. He is among 500 newly trained United pilots who earned the wrath of company Chairman Richard Ferris for refusing to cross picket lines set up by current pilots when they struck the airline May 16.

The issue of the 500 trainees has become a key sticking point in a back-to-work agreement that separates the Air Line Pilots Association and United. It was mentioned repeatedly during a spirited union rally on Sunday at O`Hare International Airport, which drew more than 500 pilots, relatives and members of other unions.

Ferris has said the 500 will never work for the airline; the union insists that they not be penalized for honoring the strike. Each side feels so strongly, a management attorney said, that ``at this point one may have an irresistible force meeting an immovable object.``

The continuation of the strike is unusual because both sides have largely agreed on wages and benefits. A three-year accord would have included pay increases for current pilots of 3 percent in the first and second years and 3.5 percent in the third year but a steeply lower pay scale for future first and second officers, the spots below captain in the cockpit.

The union thus went a very long way toward satisfying United by agreeing to a two-tier wage. Few of the union`s contracts with 48 other airlines have a two-tier system, and the most concessionary is one that merges the pay scales after five years.

Because the pay for years 6 through 12 was left to future bargaining, or possibly binding arbitration, it is not known when the United pay scales might merge. At a minimum, they would merge at the captain`s rank. It now takes 15 to 20 years to make captain, but that should drop markedly as retirements affect the corps of pilots, whose average age is 52.

United trained the 500 pilots in Denver at substantial expense. As Shay readily admitted, the company told them in the days before the strike that they were guaranteed work if they crossed picket lines and that they would not be given work if they honored those lines.

Few of the newly trained pilots, perhaps only four, have crossed the picket lines.

``I was trained to be a professional pilot,`` said Shay, 31, who is married and the father of one. ``To that end, I`ve always known you needed good crew coordination.

``If I had crossed, I knew I`d have to one day be working with the guys who had not. There would be a lot of animosity. I also decided that there comes a time in your life when you have to stand up for more than just money.``

A management attorney suggested that Ferris` position may be ``too rigid`` and that it is ``not readily susceptible to compromise.``

``When you get differing philosophical views like this, it becomes difficult,`` he said. ``It is not like the difference between paying an extra $1 or $1.50 an hour.``

``Even though this walkout is legal, this all smells to me like PATCO,``

said a professional mediator who has followed the negotiations. That was a reference to the illegal 1981 walkout by the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, a union that was ``busted`` by President Reagan when he replaced members who struck.

As for Shay, his heart is in flying. He had nine years as a pilot with the Navy, where he earned $39,000 a year. With a degree in microengineering, he believes he could get a good engineering job ``tomorrow.``

He suspects he could catch on with another airline, but he`d prefer that the strike be settled and that he can finally make it into the cockpit of a United plane.